Johan Galtung, War Is A Crime ------------------------------ roads and people they saw were targets We were told to fly into an enormous area the size of Southern Norway and search for targets ourselves We were used to clearance from somebody on the ground but did not get it But they did get regime change Norway obeyed orders doing its part This is criminal activity like mass murderers gone amok shooting wildly killing whatever moves Who ordered it The Labour Party prime minister foreign minister and defence minister in a red green meaning brown coalition Who did it The pilots According to the Nuremberg Tribunal the latter cannot claim they only followed orders and according to the Tokyo Tribunal the former cannot claim that they were unaware of what happened It is the duty of the pilots to assess the legality of what happens and of the politicians to know what happens The case is now being made at the European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg the International Criminal Court where Norway does not enjoy U S protection and the Norwegian Constitutional Court They will encounter incomprehension in Norway We the perfect ones Crimes But we must globalise crimes against humanity a crime committed somewhere is a crime committed everywhere like in the case of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet A criminal can in the future be arrested in any state in the world extradited or tried where he is arrested The Mother of parliaments in London showed the way as it also did for the war in Syria a solvable crisis This would limit their freedom of travel as it already does for some top U S and Israeli politicians But beyond that there is another approach excommunicating such states from the inter state system and the U N breaking or downgrading bilateral diplomatic relations Trade is not the issue state legitimacy unless that state itself takes action indicting the warlords is The present system gives a U S president the right almost single handedly to press the nuclear button Where does this madness come from From the Westphalia 1648 peace giving states the right to declare war That does not explain the concentration of the right to engage in mass murder at the top of the state pyramid The Abrahamic god kills massively more in the Torah and the Bible than in the Qur an to be a King Dei gratia by the grace of god bestows the same right on kings transferred to their successors the presidents and prime ministers Not strange that we find most belligerence in the West Are there perhaps politico economic causative factors coupled with the present hegemony of the top most Western power that are driving Western belligerence This should be considered seriously though it does not void research into the socio cultural factors their religious thus ideological components and the deep psychological origins of aggression The editor Democracy or not it does not matter The grace of god was transferred to the people in vox populi vox Dei leading to

Eric Hobsbawm, The Future of War and Peace - ------------------------------------------- of which they disapproved became common at least where it seemed comparatively risk free This remains the case Second the clear distinction between war and peace became obscure Except here and there the second world war neither began with declarations of war nor ended with treaties of peace It was followed by a period so hard to classify as either war or peace in the old sense that the neologism cold war had to be invented to describe it The sheer obscurity of the position since the cold war is illustrated by the current state of affairs in the Middle East Neither peace nor war exactly describes the situation in Iraq since the formal end of the Gulf war the country is still bombed almost daily by foreign powers or the relations between Palestinians and Israelis or those between Israel and its neighbours Lebanon and Syria All this is an unfortunate legacy of the 20th century world wars but also of war s increasingly powerful machinery of mass propaganda and of a period of confrontation between incompatible and passion laden ideologies which brought into wars a crusading element comparable to that seen in religious conflicts of the past These conflicts unlike the traditional wars of the international power system were increasingly waged for non negotiable ends such as unconditional surrender Since both wars and victories were seen as total any limitation on a belligerent s capacity to win that might be imposed by the accepted conventions of 18th and 19th century warfare even formal declarations of war was rejected So was any limitation on the victors power to assert their will Experience had shown that agreements reached in peace treaties could easily be broken In recent years the situation has been further complicated by the tendency in public rhetoric for the term war to be used to refer to the deployment of organised force against various national or international activities regarded as anti social the war against the Mafia for example or the war against drug cartels In these conflicts the actions of two types of armed force are confused One let s call them soldiers is directed against other armed forces with the object of defeating them The other let s call them police sets out to maintain or re establish the required degree of law and public order within an existing political entity typically a state Victory which has no necessary moral connotation is the object of one force the bringing to justice of offenders against the law which does have a moral connotation is the object of the other Such a distinction is easier to draw in theory than in practice however Homicide by a soldier in battle is not in itself a breach of the law But what if a member of the IRA regards himself as a belligerent even though official UK law regards him as a murderer Were the operations in Northern Ireland a war as the IRA held or an attempt in the face of law breakers to maintain orderly government in one province of the UK Since not only a formidable local police force but a national army was mobilised against the IRA for 30 years or so we may conclude that it was a war but one systematically run like a police operation in a way that minimised casualties and the disruption of life in the province Such are the complexities and confusions of the relations between peace and war at the start of the new century They are well illustrated by the military and other operations in which the US and its allies are at present engaged There is now as there was throughout the 20th century a complete absence of any effective global authority capable of controlling or settling armed disputes Globalisation has advanced in almost every respect economically technologically culturally even linguistically except one politically and militarily territorial states remain the only effective authorities There are officially about 200 states but in practice only a handful count of which the US is overwhelmingly the most powerful However no state or empire has ever been large rich or powerful enough to maintain hegemony over the political world let alone to establish political and military supremacy over the globe A single superpower cannot compensate for the absence of global authorities especially given the lack of conventions relating to international disarmament for instance or weapons control strong enough to be voluntarily accepted as binding by major states Some such authorities exist notably the UN various technical and financial bodies such as the IMF the World Bank and the WTO and some international tribunals But none has any effective power other than that granted to them by agreements between states or thanks to the backing of powerful states or voluntarily accepted by states Regrettable as this may be it isn t likely to change in the foreseeable future Since only states wield real power the risk is that international institutions will be ineffective or lack universal legitimacy when they try to deal with offences such as war crimes Even when world courts are established by general agreement for example the International Criminal court set up by the UN Rome statute of July 17 1998 their judgments will not necessarily be accepted as legitimate and binding so long as powerful states are in a position to disregard them A consortium of powerful states may be strong enough to ensure that some offenders from weaker states are brought before these tribunals perhaps curbing the cruelty of armed conflict in certain areas This is an example however of the traditional exercise of power and influence within an international state system not of the exercise of international law There is however a major difference between the 21st and the 20th century the idea that war takes place in a world divided into territorial areas under the authority of effective governments which possess a monopoly of the means of public power and coercion has ceased to apply

Norman Pollack, Massing for Global Confrontation ---------------------------- Prize as the credential validating statesmanship from which he has derived astonishing mileage however much his vitiating its meaning is on a mission to gather a Grand Alliance in opposition to Russia His message to Europe is one of simple exhortation Rearm Stand Firm Advance Conquer through sanctions if possible or more active means if necessary Deny the use of force whilst building prodigiously embarrassing the EU and NATO to fall into line from ground up its basic components and hence creating the context for its potential use Russia becomes the Goths of our time entitled to no mercy or even negotiations Do I exaggerate The week began with excluding Russia from the Group of 8 so abrupt and categorical the change that by two days later Group of 7 became a routine designation The next day Obama designated Russia a regional power yet still pressed the EU and NATO to expand the latter s military capabilities And with an appearance at Flanders Fields the day after he conjured up the specter of mass deaths in World War One as somehow connected to Russia s actions one hundred years later in Crimea given its tenuousness a linkage based on innuendo his way of instilling fears the propaganda technique of choice perfected in the campaign of counterterrorism And by the close of the week he was emphasizing two conflicting world views invoking the Iron Curtain expecting images of slavery to dance before our eyes on one side as meanwhile pristine democracy lies on the other very much the unreconstructed Cold Warrior at every turn But beyond carefully drafted rhetoric there is the reality of confrontation Crimea I strongly suspect the pretext for the reincarnation of Dulles s rollback theory and practice and even then never forsaking the pivot as though back to a two directional war paradigm and orientation Only now Russia itself is receding from view replaced in geopolitical thinking by China as Enemy 1 conceptually fairly crude an undisguised encirclement backed as well by the Trans Pacific Partnership the furor over Russia in Crimea a means of strengthening the US military even more though resources will merely add to the Pacific first strategy These are indeed exciting times America as the fusion of three closely integrated formations all significantly accelerated by Obama and the Democrats the National Security State the Garrison State and the Surveillance State all structurally simpatico with the highest stage of wealth concentration in American history the distillation therefore of the militarization and financialization of US capitalism My New York Times comment on Michael Shear and Paul Baker s article Obama Renewing U S Commitment to NATO Alliance March 27 which serves as an example of the week s reporting follows same date Wonderful NYT Go for it treat Obama as a distinguished world leader and a demigod replete with Shear s neutral language to wit Russian aggression ways of reassuring Poland intended to explain and honor Europe s role in the global democratic movement threatens

Floyd Rudmin, Floyd Rudmin, Viewing the Ukraine Crisis from a Russian perspective ------------------------- which lasted less than 3 hours and killed 3 000 victims Americans anger to avenge those attacks is deep and enduring allowing no limits of cost no limits of law to prevent such attacks happening again Thus Americans can if they wish appreciate Russia s reactions to being attacked by foreign armies and can understand why Russia also will allow no limits of cost no limits of law to prevent such attacks happening again The USA has not suffered invasions because it is bounded by large oceans east and west and by powerless peaceful nations north and south Russia has no protective natural barriers and has had aggressive neighbors on three sides Although they may forget or deny this history Turks Poles Swedes French Germans British and Japanese have each invaded Russia more than once For example in the early 1600s Poland twice invaded Russia when its government was in disarray Russians of all social classes united in popular uprising and saved the nation In 1613 the Romanov Tsar instituted a holiday called Day of Moscow s Liberation from Polish Invaders which is now celebrated every November 4 as Unity Day In the early 1700s Sweden invaded Russia with 40 000 troops but was defeated by Peter the Great s use of scorched earth retreat across vast distances Only the Swedish king and 543 soldiers survived It is not something unique in the personalities of Tsar Peter or President Putin that drives Russia to require non threatening neighbors It is the collective Russian memory of invasion Each era of history has had its military super power and each super power in turn attacked Russia The Mongol Super power The Mongol Empire was the largest in history conquering the Chinese Empire and Persian Empire In 1238 the Mongols crossed the Volga River with 35 000 mounted archers backed by 70 000 Turks including Chinese siege equipment for attacking walled cities They conquered most Russian regions as well as Crimea In 1240 the Mongols captured Kiev and killed most of its 50 000 inhabitants An estimated 500 000 Kievan Rus Russians Ukrainians Byelorussians died during the Mongol invasion For several centuries afterwards regional khans continued attacking Russia For example in 1382 the Golden Horde sieged Moscow slaughtered 24 000 Muscovites and took thousands of captives The Ottoman Super power At the height of its power in the 1600s the Ottoman Empire controlled half of the Mediterranean world and all of the Black Sea and Red Sea regions The Crimean Tatars supplied the Ottoman slave trade by harvesting the steppe taking an estimated 2 million captives between 1500 and 1700 For example in 1571 a combined Crimean and Ottoman force of 120 000 invaded Russia burned Moscow killed an estimated 80 000 Russians and took 150 000 captives to slave markets in Crimea Historians count more than 50 Tatar attacks The last harvest of Russians was in 1769 In the 7th Russo Turkish War Russians conquered Crimea and finally freed themselves from Tatar

Thalef Deen, US-Russia Bickering May Trigger Nuclear Fallout -------------------- a place for issuing nuclear threats or scoring nuclear points she said I ve been disgusted to see some British and French representatives try to use Ukraine s crisis to justify retaining nuclear weapons in perpetuity Russia is not directly threatening to attack Ukraine with nuclear weapons and no one believes it would be useful for the United States and countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NATO to threaten Russia with a nuclear attack no matter what they do said Johnson Ukraine which was once armed with the third largest nuclear arsenal after the United States and Russia and possessed more nukes than France Britain and China dismantled and shipped its weapons to Russia for destruction beginning in 1994 Dr Ira Helfand co president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War IPPNW said Ukraine is commendable in being one of the few states to have given up its nuclear weapons peacefully and the people of Ukraine should not have to fear nuclear weapons ravaging their country Any war involves a terrible and lasting human toll risks spreading and harming people s health in the region and beyond he warned In a statement released last week IPPNW said it underscores the absolute imperative to avoid the possibility of use of nuclear weapons This danger exists with any armed conflict involving nuclear armed states or alliances which could escalate in uncontrollable unintended and unforeseeable ways it warned Dr Tilman A Ruff co chair International Steering Group and Australian Board member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons told IPS the current agreements e g START New START and INF are probably most important in that they demonstrate that verified reductions and elimination of whole classes of nuclear weapons are feasible and hopefully reduce the risk of nuclear war between Russia and the United States However continuing massive nuclear arsenals on both sides the retention of almost 1 800 nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert missiles ready to be launched within minutes the aggressive eastward expansion of NATO contrary to what Russian leaders were promised and the rapid escalation of tension over recent events in Ukraine demonstrate the Cold War has not been firmly laid to rest Any confrontation between nuclear armed states runs the risk of escalating to the use of nuclear weapons whether by inadvertence accident or bad decision making said Dr Ruff who is also an associate professor at the Nossal Institute for Global Health School of Population and Global Health University of Melbourne He said currently all the nuclear armed states are massively investing in keeping and modernising their nuclear arsenals and show no serious commitment to disarm as they are legally bound to do As long as nuclear weapons exist and are deployed and policies countenance their possible use the danger they will be used is real and present The dangerous and unstable situation in Ukraine highlights this starkly and should dispel any notion that nuclear danger ended 20 years ago with apparent end

Johan Galtung, Ukraine: The Solution Is A Federation...------------------------- and North and for Viktor Yanukovych in East and South Ukraine in the 2010 elections Elections decided by longitude latitude mean two countries and yet there is also just one The solution a federation with high levels of autonomy for both parts Educated guess it will happen This is where Putin made his basic mistake he moved too fast He is more intelligent better informed more able to manage many factors mentally at the same time than Western leaders Others are slower they need more time A referendum is the right of any people regardless of what the law says a serious act under freedom of expression whether in Crimea illegal Scotland legal Catalonia in Spain illegal What then happens is a very different matter If people vote for a divorce then so be it But make it clean Putin has made it dirty so far but the situation can be remedied Putin should have called a conference right after the referendum before any annexation making it clear that he would respect the call for Crimea s entry into the Russian Federation but would take the concerns of everyone touched directly by the outcome seriously The Tatars are Muslims not Orthodox Not unlike the Serbs in Kosovo who are Orthodox not Muslim like the Albanian majority Respect them offer them the dignity of autonomy within Crimea try to amend the horrors perpetrated against them in the past be open to reconciliation The Ukrainians in Crimea soldiers or civilians If firmly rooted invite them to stay if garrisoned soldiers invite them to leave peacefully before any annexation makes it look like surrender The Russian speaking in Ukraine 16 percent Leave the door open for a Crimean style process with referendum and annexation if they so wish but make it clear that

John Pilger, In Ukraine, the U.S. Is Dragging Us Toward War with Russia --------------------------- Chile or they are murdered like Patrice Lumumba in the Democratic Republic of Congo All are subjected to a western media campaign of vilification think Fidel Castro Hugo Chávez now Vladimir Putin Washington s role in Ukraine is different only in its implications for the rest of us For the first time since the Reagan years the US is threatening to take the world to war With eastern Europe and the Balkans now military outposts of Nato the last buffer state bordering Russia Ukraine is being torn apart by fascist forces unleashed by the US and the EU We in the west are now backing neo Nazis in a country where Ukrainian Nazis backed Hitler Having masterminded the coup in February against the democratically elected government in Kiev Washington s planned seizure of Russia s historic legitimate warm water naval base in Crimea failed The Russians defended themselves as they have done against every threat and invasion from the west for almost a century But Nato s military encirclement has accelerated along with US orchestrated attacks on ethnic Russians in Ukraine If Putin can be provoked into coming to their aid his pre ordained pariah role will justify a Nato run guerrilla war that is likely to spill into Russia itself Instead Putin has confounded the war party by seeking an accommodation with Washington and the EU by withdrawing Russian troops from the Ukrainian border and urging ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine to abandon the weekend s provocative referendum These Russian speaking and bilingual people a third of Ukraine s population have long sought a democratic federation that reflects the country s ethnic diversity and is both autonomous of Kiev and independent of Moscow Most are neither separatists nor rebels as the western media calls them but citizens who want to live securely in their homeland Like the ruins of Iraq and Afghanistan Ukraine has been turned into a CIA theme park run personally by CIA director John Brennan in Kiev with dozens of special units from the CIA and FBI setting up a security structure that oversees savage attacks on those who opposed the February coup Watch the videos read the eye witness reports from the massacre in Odessa this month Bussed fascist thugs burned the trade union headquarters killing 41 people trapped inside Watch the police standing by A doctor described trying to rescue people but I was stopped by pro Ukrainian Nazi radicals One of them pushed me away rudely promising that soon me and other Jews of Odessa are going to meet the same fate What occurred yesterday didn t even take place during the fascist occupation in my town in world war two I wonder why the whole world is keeping silent Russian speaking Ukrainians are fighting for survival When Putin announced the withdrawal of Russian troops from the border the Kiev junta s defence secretary Andriy Parubiy a founding member of the fascist Svoboda party boasted that attacks on insurgents would continue In Orwellian